Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisR1970
When we began to construct a cost analysis for the electronic format and its distribution we realized something that most people do not think about; both the Fixed and the Variable cost portion of each book almost disappear for the electronic format. When a physical book is sold there is fixed cost consisting of Factory overhead for printing, distribution and warehousing mostly. Then there is a variable cost associated with each book sold that includes the materials and labor for each book. At the end of the chain the retailer adds both types of cost also. For an electronic format and distribution book these cost are not associated. Almost all of the cost of the book is incurred at the beginning before the first book is sold. The entire printing and distribution chain is almost erased. The result is that after initial costs are recovered for the Author and Rights; every book sold is 99% + pure profit.
|
You are exactly right of course. The problem for publishers I suspect is that neither the market nor the publishers themselves are ready to move exclusively to ebooks. This means that they will keep having all the costs of traditional printing/distribution/etc for their paper books, while gradually fewer and fewer of them will be sold, as people will be buying more and more ebooks instead. I believe in some years from now (no idea how many), most books will be published in digital form primarily, with a few special edition hardcovers for a much smaller market, like vinyl LPs today.